


Property

by Halequinne



Series: The Kick Start Chronicles [3]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killjoys, Flashback, M/M, Mindwiping, Needles, Non-recreational Drugs, Reprogramming, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:43:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halequinne/pseuds/Halequinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I woke up in a white room."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Property

I did have my eyes open until the lights turned on.

 _Motherfucker!_

“A little warning would have been _nice_ , Korse!”

My voice stretched through the hollow room and there was no response. There was never a response. I didn’t even know if it was Korse who put me in here anymore; he was the one I’d been brought to at the start of processing, but since then I hadn’t actually seen him.

But I knew _someone_ was watching me. Not that I could get away in this state – my body laid flat on the slab, metal restraints clasping down over my wrists, ankles and neck. No, I wasn’t going anywhere from here. But someone was watching. Because that’s what they do here: they watch you. The entirety of Battery City was all just a show for Big Brother now. You couldn’t pick your nose in your own shower without the charming folks at Better Living Industries knowing about it.

So I knew someone would see when I poked out my tongue in defiance at the high ceiling with its blinding lights; knew someone would hear my mouthing off about nothing in particular, just any excuse to spit profanities in the face of BL/ind; knew someone would be tuned into my singing.

That was when I was assured that I was being studied, when I sang. The bolt of electricity pulsed over the entire slab I was on, scorching the skin on my bare wrists, ankles and neck.

“Argh! Fucking hell!“ I screeched out at the pain. “Well I know you’re there! Come talk to me now!”

 _They could at least tell me what they wanted from me._

No person entered the enclosed space they had me in, but a monotonous voice boomed out over the PA system.

“Where is he, Jennifer?”

My eyes glared up at the bright lights above me, squinting but searching.

“I’m not Jenny, you fuckers– Nargh!” The pulse ripped through my body again, making my back arch upwards unnaturally.

“You are Jennifer Madison Hayes. Female. Twenty-one years of age. Daughter of Grant Louis Hayes and Adele River Hayes, twin sister of Johnathon Matthew Hayes. Multiple arrests; all for breaking regulation and inciting public unrest.”

 _He wasn’t Johnny anymore. He was a Killjoy. He wasn’t Johnny._

My lips smirked without my permission at the thought of my previous encounters with the BL/ind authorities as my mind raced with thoughts of my brother. They’d spent a long time telling me how evil he was and that it was good that he’d been banished to the desert to die for his crimes. But I knew better and I missed him.

“Where is he, Jennifer?” The voice continued, ignoring my smile. It was female, but that was all I could tell.

Not even knowing whom they were talking about, I opened my mouth wide before pressing my lips together clearly.

 _If they’re gonna call me that, they’re not going to get any answers._ I’d found my Killjoy name the moment I’d fled to the desert to find my twin. Even though they caught me not two hours later, I would never answer to Jenny again.

From that moment on, I was Kick Start.

I cried out against my will as the next jolt fired through me. They’d upped the voltage. I could feel the heat in my skin even after the waves had stopped.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Why did you want me to come to Los Angeles with you?” I asked with an air of scepticism. Not that I wouldn’t have come when he wanted me to, but that he was here in the first place and thought I might like to be too.

He looked straight into my eyes.

“You didn’t have to, you know. It’s just going to be a while and I know I’d miss you.”  
His voice was solemn, genuine, and it still surprised me to hear.

“Ricky, of course I want to be here. I just like Boston. You like Boston. What’s LA got that’s so great?” I gestured around me at the tall buildings crowned in smog.

A small smile broke out on his face, instantly reflected on my own. I could never help but smile back when his lips curled up like that and his eyes brightened with it.

 _How was I so lucky?_

“Other than someone who wants to produce my video?” He looked thoughtful, trying not to laugh while his fingers slid around my slightly too wide hips his pinkie and ring finger roaming under the waistband of my jeans. It felt nice and made my skin tingle under his touch. “Actually, no. That’s all. Well, except that you’re here with me, there’s that too.”

He was just so… Enticing. I couldn’t have said no if I wanted to.

“Well then, California, here we come.”

His smile was wide and he pulled me to him, chin hooking over my shoulder as he squeezed me tight and his fingers slid around to my back, still dipping into my pants a little.

“Thank you for being here, Johnny.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I stared at him, panicked.

“We have to! My whole life is back there!”

Ricky shook his head, long hair getting caught on his eyelashes. “It’s gone, Johnny.”

I shook my head frantically.

“It’s gone. The east coast doesn’t exist anymore, unless you mean central Ohio, ‘cause the rest is underwater now. And they say LA is next to go. We couldn’t get out if we tried.”

 _It can’t be gone. Everything is there._

One hand on my face still, he took my right with his left as his lips kissed a little at my unresponsive ones before giving up and dragging me out of the car and into the bomb shelter.

“If we’re lucky, they’ll get the shield up and we’ll be able to stay here safely,” he muttered as he sat me down before going back to check the integrity of the hatch.

 _Stay here if we’re lucky?_

I couldn’t think of anything worse than living out my life in this destroyed city. _Battery_ City, they were calling it now. Fitting really, due to the new power requirements since the fallout of the nuclear explosions. I couldn’t quite muster the small dash of optimism that Ricky had.

But he checked everything in the shelter while I shut down, making sure we would live as long as we could. And then he sat down next to me, pressing our thighs together, leaning on me and took my hand.

I started to work again a little when he did that; my brain starting to figure out what was important.

“I love you, Ricky. You know that, right?”

His eyes squeezed shut and he squeezed my hand just as fiercely. “Don’t go doing that,” he gulped, shuffling up and dropping my hand in favour of curling his fingers around the back of my neck. “This is _not_ the end for us.”

I sighed as he pulled me in and found my lips again. I was aware this time of how soft his were and moved my mouth slowly in response. It was calming, so I went with it gladly, despite the situation we were in.

“But yes,” he murmured into the kiss. “I know. And I love you too.’

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The room was light, completely white.

 _So I couldn’t hide from them._ They were watching me. They were always watching me.

The light didn’t come from the outside, but from the glaring illuminated panels that made up the ceiling, keeping the room lit at all hours.

I couldn’t have been in there more than… A month, surely? They’d shuffled small plates of food through the door at times; entered, masked as all the police now were, to inject me with their chemicals they wouldn’t explain to me. Only they weren’t called police anymore – and nor should they be because they certainly weren’t doing the same job anymore – they were the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W units, their masks like white sacks with the Better Living symbol over their faces; to smile for them, as though they weren’t able to anymore, or weren’t trusted to keep it up at all times. But the drugs they gave me didn’t make me sick, and they knew everything there was to know about me so there was no need for anything to probe my memories, but it seemed to be taking me a little longer every day to remember the colour of Ricky’s eyes.

 _But he was gone now anyway._

A public figure like him, being gay and proud of it, couldn’t just walk around in Battery City. For all the safety and shelter Better Living Industries had promised, they were not very tolerant of anything coming between them and their supposed utopian society.

Most people were just too medicated to notice though.

 _What colour were those eyes?_

They were… They were…

I shook my head and threw my arm over my eyes, exhausted. No matter how tired you are, it’s still hard to sleep when surrounded by light as bright as there was in my cell. Especially when they sporadically drop and raise the temperature to well past comfortable.

*

“Wait, wait, wait!” I raised my hand in front of me as the masked man came towards where I sat, crouched in the corner. There was a needle in hand as always. It was a fucking big one too and made me shudder.

He hesitated, only for a moment, but it was enough. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

He cocked his head. “We’re don’t want anything _from_ you, Jennifer,” his voice was scratchy and low and I didn’t recognise it at all. I tried not to scowl as he called me that name because, honestly and much to my reluctance, I looked more like her now than I had in years. “We’re helping you; rehabilitating you, so you can go back into the City. Your parents are looking forward to your return.”

My parents, I’m pretty sure, were dead. And even if they weren’t, they hadn’t spoken to me since I started binding my breasts and burning my skirts. The Scarecrow’s words started to sink into my brain, delayed somewhat from either the lack of sleep or the drugs.

“ _Rehabilitate_?” I asked, cautiously. “How so? There’s nothing wrong with me…”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

My eyes snapped back to the door at the new voice. A woman stood there: she looked Japanese and had a slight accent to match, her perfectly straight hair hung in a bob around her face and her suit was pristine and starched.

“You’re sick, Jennifer,” she continued. “And we just want to help you get better.”

She nodded to the Scarecrow, her black bob bouncing slightly.

He advanced on me again, brandishing the needle in one rubber glove covered hand  
and reaching for my forearm with the other. My head began to shake from side to side, uncontrollably.

“No…” My voice was weak even in my own ears, but my physical reflexes had a better grasp on the situation than my brain and I was lashing out with my arms and legs. Still weakened from weeks of sitting in a cell I knew it wouldn’t make much difference, but fighting back was the last thing I had left and I wasn’t going to give it up so easily.

There apparently weren’t reinforcements available today, because the man in the mask fought me. Usually they would just stand back as I growled low and eyed them down until several identically clad others walked in to restrain me limb by limb.

 _Must be getting to be a lower priority._

Maybe that meant they would let me go soon?

I managed one good kick to the knee and an elbow to the chest before a hand with a grip like a vice took my arm. A pain unlike anything I’d felt since they left me in the cell shot through me, originating at my neck where the Scarecrow had stabbed the needle into me in frustration, pushing its contents much faster than I would have thought possible, before wrenching it back out of me and tossing me to the floor.

I could hear the woman laughing as my vision blurred.

“Excuse me?” A new voice sounded from the door. The laughing stopped immediately and I could see the shadow of her form turn to the intruder.

“What?” She snapped.

 _If only the room would stay still…_

“You were right, they came. Three got away, but one had to stay to make sure they did.”

“Which one?” He voice was still harsh, but her tone was… Excited?

I could hear the pride in the voice of the newcomer too.

“Gerard Arthur Way.”

I didn’t completely pass out until well after they left my cell. Just unable to make my limbs or eyes work, just left with my thoughts of who the new inmate might be.  
The name meant nothing to me except for a nagging feeling I couldn’t quite latch on to. Maybe I’d heard of him before they started making me forget.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Where is he?”

I must have passed out on the slab, but the voice surrounding me, loud in the speakers around my head, brought me back out of my head. I was in a chair, strapped down and secured.

Another voice filtered into the room, then. It was frantic and I only heard the end of the conversation as the two people argued louder and louder.

“–We just give her _more_ then!” The second voice demanded.

There was the sound of something, a hand maybe, slamming against a solid surface. “Any more and we will lose the information she has,” the original voice spat. “We need to stop giving her memories and drag out the truth. It’s more important than rehabilitating her. And she’s had more than we’ve ever tested before as it is!”

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

I didn’t know where the thought came from, but suddenly I needed answers.  
“What did you give me!?” I yelled into the room in front of me, unable to turn and face the voices.

There was a quick muttering between the two voices again before the original voice – a woman, I noticed then – told me not to worry, it was just medicine to help me. I told her I didn’t believe her.

But it didn’t matter, because that was when the shocks started rolling through the chair. Not as strong as those on the slab, but sharper. They made my body jerk and convulse as much as it could in the restraints. I heard my shoulders, knees and wrists pop and crack as the bones pulled at obscure angles.

“Where is he?” She called down again, angrily, sending another quick pulse through the chair.

And I snapped, unable to ignore their questions any longer. “Who!?” I screamed. “Where is who!? Who are you talking about!?”

There was a pause, but no more shocks – for the time being at least. I didn’t understand, though. Who would I know that they were after? I’d escaped, yes, but by myself and they’d caught me again before I saw a single person outside the city. The only person I knew out there was my brother, and he was dead. They had told me that themselves. They had told me all of this themselves…

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

“The man who helped you to escape, Jennifer.” I blinked widely at her words. “Where is Gerard?”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I woke up in a white room.

There was nothing on the walls except a single closed door with no window, and only fluorescent strip lights on the ceiling. It was cold and I didn’t know where I was, let alone why I was there.

“H-hello?” I coughed out, my voice groggy and thick.

There was nothing.

I scrambled up to the door and tried the handle. Locked. A tremor shook through me and I wondered why I would be locked in an empty room, God knows where. What had I done?

I knocked on the door, hoping someone with answers would come.

“Hello?” I called again and knocked harder. I could hear movement outside, but no one seemed interested in helping me.

But suddenly there was a clunking at the door and I stepped back hurriedly, only then noticing the baggy white jumpsuit I was wearing.

A woman with black hair cut in a severe bob walked in the door and shut it behind her. “How are you feeling, Jennifer?” She asked pleasantly, but without much enthusiasm, as though it didn’t matter what the answer was.

But I stalled at one thing. “Jennifer?” There was no one else in the room, but the name didn’t seem familiar. Come to think of it, I didn’t know what name I expected her to call me. I began to shake as my brain tried as hard as it could to come up with any scrap of information that was familiar and failed.

But the woman’s eyes brightened suddenly, as though I had given her something she thought she would never acquire.

“Yes,” she said slowly, with a more comforting tone to her voice. “You’re name is Jennifer, don’t you remember?”

I shook my head, my eyes imploring her for answers.

She just nodded, which didn’t make sense. “It’s alright, Jennifer. We thought this might happen, that you might have trouble remembering after the shock.”

“Re-remembering what?” I stuttered. I was scared, but if this woman could fill in the blanks in my memory I would be fine.

“Come with me,” she said gently and lead me out of the room. I followed her down a brightly lit corridor with nothing but closed doors on either side, into another corridor of the same nature, and into a more open space where there were tables and chairs. She sat me down across from her and smiled.

“We’ve gathered some photographs and documents that we’ll show you later to help stimulate your memory, but for now I will just tell you.”

I watched her intently, waiting.

“Do you remember the bombs, Jennifer?”

I looked up at her, confused for a moment. But then an image slotted into place. An image of destruction with a dose of horror and fear attached to it. I gulped and nodded.

“Good… Good. You made it to Battery City, safe and sound. But you had a twin brother, Johnathon, who didn’t make it, I’m sorry. The Runners caught him and took him into the desert.” She shook her head sympathetically. “We’ve been looking for him, and others that they took, but we can’t find them. We don’t know why they are taking people, but we can only hope we will be able to get them back to the safety of the city before any harm comes to them.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

My body shook at the man in the smiley-face mask took my arm and pulled me to my feet. I knew what was happening, I hadn’t been in the white room by myself for very long since my last visit to another… Patient? Prisoner? I couldn’t decide. One girl had tried to strangle me as soon as I got in the room with her, I’d managed to kick her off but it occurred to me not long after that the guards must have seen, yet did nothing. A man I’d visited had pushed me into a corner, torn at my clothes, touched all over my body with his hands and pressed his heavy weight against me jerkily to hold me in place when I tried to curl away. Another man I saw just sat in the corner, wouldn’t even look at me, let alone come near. A woman had tried to speak to me, but seemed to run out of energy in her vocal chords before she could finish even a single sentence, instantly forgetting I was there.

I felt like the test equipment, not a subject.

*

It was a man in the bright room I was pushed into next, far enough away from the door so that it could be closed and locked before I had a change to thrash my way back out, to save myself before they let this new madman react in whatever way he wished.

I scrambled into the corner of the room instead, bringing my knees up in front of me to protect myself and trying to look as small as possible in case that would help me avoid his notice. But he seemed far more lucid than any of the other seventeen I had seen.

“Oh, God.” He murmured, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as though trying to deny something he knew to be fact. “No…”

He stood and started to walk towards me, freezing when I shrank back into the wall even further. He reached a hand out in front of him, palm towards me. His pinkie finger stuck out further than it looked like it should. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.” His voice was soft and although my expression hadn’t changed from wide-eyed fear, he took another tentative step forward. I held back the flinch this time and was rewarded with a sad smile curling his lips. He sat next to me, close but not touching.

“Wh-where am I?” I asked in a quiet, shaky voice.

He snapped his head up to me as though he wasn’t expecting me to speak. I fearfully looked up to meet his gaze.

He was dirty. I knew everyone here was dirty, from what I had seen no one had access to showers and any water we were given was needed to fend off dehydration. But this man… More than just the dirt on his white suit, there was dust flecking his bright red hair and caking the skin around his eyes. He was different to the rest of us.

“You’re in the Better Living Industry Medical Labs… What do you remember?” He added carefully.

I shrugged, a tiny movement but able to be seen nonetheless. “Just what they told me when I woke up yesterday – I think it was yesterday, at least – my name; that I’m in Battery City; that Better Living will look after me, though I don’t think that means while I’m here,” I shuddered.

“Then you won’t remember anything I tell you today,” he said sadly. “What’s your name?”

“They call me Jennifer,” I offered, not knowing any different anyway.

“Well, Jenny, if they wipe you again, try to hold onto this for as long as you can: whatever they tell you is a lie.”

I gulped. _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

“Who are you?” I asked tentatively.

The man offered me another sad smile. “Well, since you won’t remember, and if they don’t come for me I’ll be dead within the week, you can call me Gee.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I woke up in a white room.

There was nothing but a single closed and fluorescent strip lights in it. It was cold and I didn’t know where I was, or why I was there.

“H-hello?”

Nothing.

I tried the handle. Locked. Why I would be locked in an empty room? What had I done?

“Hello?”

There was a clunking at the door and I stepped back.

A black-haired woman walked in. “How are you feeling, Jennifer?”

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

What? Was that a memory?

But I was stalled at something else already. “Jennifer?”

“Yes,” she said. “You’re name is Jennifer, don’t you remember?”

I shook my head, my eyes imploring her for answers.

She just nodded, which didn’t make sense. “It’s alright, Jennifer. We thought this might happen, that you might have trouble remembering after the shock.”

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

“Re-remembering what?”

“Come with me.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Who is _they_?” I kept asking Gee questions, never sure if I was overstepping my boundaries or not. He seemed not to mind, although sometimes his voice sounded like he was repeating the same information over and over to a particularly dense child.

I figured it didn’t matter what he told me since I apparently wouldn’t remember it once they’d finished using me as testing equipment.

“My brother and a couple of our friends,” he looked like he wanted to say names but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. “I can’t get out without them, but if they have any brains they’ll leave me here and get as far away as possible.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, the idea of escape had given me the closest thing I’d had to hope in as long as I could remember. “They won’t come for you?”

Gee sighed, “I hope not.”

“What?” I cried out, unintentionally loud. “Why don’t you want to leave?”

He shook his head immediately. “I want to leave,” he explained. “Of course I do. It’s not safe for them though. If they come and get me, they could end up in here too, or worse. I don’t ask that of them.”

It made sense, it did, but the idea of getting out of here was now firmly planted into my brain. I couldn’t get it out, it was all I could think about.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I woke up in a white room.

It was cold and I didn’t know where I was, or why I was there.

“H-hello?”

Nothing.

I tried the handle. Locked. What had I done?

“Hello?”

There was a clunking at the door.

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

“How are you feeling, Jennifer?”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was while I was in Gee’s room that three men came. I’d just reached out to touch him, unjustifiably convinced that he wasn’t going to hurt me. I couldn’t explain it, I just knew. My hand was almost at his when there was an explosion and the door fell flat on the ground next to me, burned out at the hinges and locks.

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie._

The men were dirty, dirtier than Gee himself was. The one at the front, grin wide on his face, was shorter than the other two, dark hair falling over the right side of his face. The other two were tall, standing close – shoulder to shoulder – one with long dark curls, the other blond and decked out in a red jacket with a matching gun pointed at the ready.

Gee swore. “What the fuck did you do this for?” He demanded, his eyes suddenly hard and his voice strong, but he was already off the ground and helping me up. And it didn’t matter, because the three men were not listening. They were already down the corridor, shooting their way back to the exit. I didn’t even think they’d seen me.

The confusion must have been evident on my face because Gee grabbed my shoulders and shook me for a moment.

“This is it,” he said. “Come on, little Kick Start, we’re doing this now. You’re not going to get left behind.”

And with that, he bolted out of the room, leaving me standing in shock for a moment before I sprinted as fast as my tired legs could take me. Things were exploding and burning in front of me, I could smell smoke and laser burned flesh and wanted to throw up.

I looked up to see the shorter man throw a cloth bag at Gee, and he caught it easily, yelling his thanks over the alarms.

We scrambled up flight after flight of stairs and it made me realise how far underground we must have been. I suddenly had no idea how the men had reached Gee and I without being detected.

They were good. They knew what they were doing and they were damn good. I was going to get out of here. I was going to be free. My mind sang with the idea as my bare feet pounded at the ground.

There was a heavy explosion to my right, the force of it flinging me sideways into the wall of the corridor. It was a scrambled rush of adrenaline that let me catch back up with the men in front of me.

A hole that looked like it once housed double doors was blown out of the wall ahead and we ran straight for it. My left foot hit the rough pavement and a relieved sigh rushed out of my lungs despite my need for it. But I choked as I tried to scream without the breath, a hand clutching painfully at my elbow, yanking me to the ground and hauling me back up again.

“Gee!” I yelled and saw the bright red flash of hair flick out as he turned, skidding to a halt as he saw me: in the hold of a Scarecrow, shiny white ray gun pressed into the skin under my chin, ready to blast through my throat and burn into my brain, leaving me with my neck craned back as far as I could manage and completely immobile.

“She dies if you leave!” A flat, gravely voice yelled from just behind my ear.

It must have only been a second or two, but in that time I saw so many things in Gee’s eyes. He looked at the Scarecrow with hate, pain, pity, defiance and arrogance. Then his stare shifted to me and he was suddenly blank. Not even a moment later, he turned and sprinted after the men who had come for him.

A sob escaped my throat unexpectedly as I was shoved to the ground. I heard gun blasts firing after them and could only make out Gee’s moving bare feet in the dust before another pair of hands covered my head and dragged me away.

 _Whatever they tell you is a lie_.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I woke up in a white room.


End file.
